Lawn Care in the Heat

The reason? The intense heat and the lack of rain is causing many plants to be starving for water.

“I see a lot of dried grass that hasn’t been growing much this summer,” said Pam Hoy of Stroudsburg.

The crews at Strauser Nature’s Helpers in East Stroudsburg say the conditions outside right now are like that of August: very, very dry.

Due to the dry conditions, his workers will not be mowing any lawns this week, to prevent damaging the grass.

“Right now it’s dormant. It’s not damaged. But if you put heavy machinery on it, the wheels will crack the crown on the grass. When it does green back up, you’re going to see the lines of machines in it,” said Duane Walck of Strauser Nature’s Helpers.

Walck says his crew is instead focusing on trimming shrubs.

“I’d say this is probably normal for August. I’d say we’re three weeks advanced in the season. But this is still pretty dry. I’d say we are in drought conditions right now,” said Walck.

One thing people can do to take care of their plants in this heat is see if the plant’s roots are exposed. If so, cover them. Also, if your plant seems like it’s starting to wilt, you’ll need to water it, but make sure you only do that in the morning.

“You don’t want to be watering during the heat of the day. You’ll actually burn it up and do more damage because the water droplets sit on the grass, magnify and you’ll burn it up,” said Walck.

As for Pam Hoy of Stroudsburg, she hired Jerry Werkheiser of “Create-A-Scape” to help her yard. Werkheiser has a word of warning for all landowners out there.

“So when things get brown, back off a little bit,” said Werkheiser.

Walck says when you water in the morning, do it heavily and infrequently.

You do not want to water at night because you are opening up your plant to rot. It’s cool at night, which is a perfect environment to create fungus and bacteria.